Two questions;
1. Large parts of the video showed no stars. Didn’t seem to be angle as other parts showed lots of stars coming up from the same apparent angle. eg 1:37 to 1:58 ish & 2:28 to 2:50. Why is that?

2. The thin green atmosphere layer in large parts of the video. That a discrete part of the atmosphere or just refraction

Great music choice, by the way, though after last time, I’d be interested in seeing what other choices people may have…

Well my original choices from here :

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/11/13/jaw-dropping-space-station-time-lapse/#comment-441038

Comments # 106- 109 there still hold.

With this one :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8YusnoQ-5M

perhaps seeming even more apt than before. Or maybe add this one :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gqT6En2O78

which I hadn’t included in the long alternative soundtrack list before that could work aptly too – until the last scene anyhow.

Plus there’s one more which could work – nice, jazzy & upbeat with neat animation – click on my name to see / hear.

Great words by Ron Garan – it’s also great to have the descriptions of what we’re flying over included here.

(Whoah, hurricane Irene sure looks one huge storm on one tranquil blue planet! )

Great music choice, by the way, though after last time, I’d be interested in seeing what other choices people may have…

Now, you could get all speculative and say we might *eventually* migrate to another habitable planet, but that is far, far off in the distant future if it ever comes to pass at all (my semi-educated guess is that it probably won’t happen. Humans will likely be destroyed by one calamity or another in the next 100-10,000 years.) It’s a pretty appealing idea, to be sure, but to me it’s right up there with the myth of an afterlife.

An oasis in the desert is a bit of water surrounded by lush, fertile soils teeming with life. And a few feet further away, sand. Lots and lots of sand. Miles of it. You could easily die trying to flee an oasis, and the life that flourishes on its verge are utterly dependent on its fragile existence. If the oasis dries up, the plants will all die, and most of the animals will die with them. (A few will be able to migrate to another oasis. Birds, camels, humans.) It may seem as if it is totally lifegiving and miraculous, but only a tiny change in conditions and everything there will die.

Oases dry up from time to time, spelling doom for all that cannot flee them in time. But for those who must live there, it is their only hope of survival. Yes, our planet is an oasis.

/gimme moar

But the idea of calling earth an “oasis” rings false. Doesn’t an “oasis” imply a place of respite from an inhospitable place? Maybe space qualifies as that, but my point is the analogy doesn’t work since the possibility of going or living there doesn’t exist for anyone but a few astronauts, and even then it’s only due to the work and support of many thousands of people on earth and a very large amount of money and resources. I’m not trying to detract from the beauty of this or the technical accomplishment involved, but let’s keep things in perspective.

There’s long been a “one world” hippie-type tendency to look upon the earth from space as a safe and beautiful place, but that seems illusory to me. It is, in many ways, a harsh and difficult place to live, even more so when you include the disparity of wealth, power, and access to safe habitation and living supplies. But to paraphrase the quote about democracy, it’s the worst planet to live on, except for all the others.

“Fairness” does not exist in nature, and human efforts to extend the idea beyond “equal protection before the law” are doomed to failure. Hundreds of millions have *died* in social experiments professing to extend the talents of the few to the many.

I’ve seen the population curve, and figures on natural resources, and noted just how many are incapable of planning their own personal lives. I am not optimistic. I hope, hope, hope that the intelligent among us are not killed by mobs, as they have been on occasion through the millennia.

Each and every one of us on this planet has the responsibility to leave it a little better than we found it.

I think, everyone agrees with it. The big resulting problem is merely that everyone has different opinions of how to achieve this goal. And that’s where everything and everyone begins to become wrong….

Anyway, beautiful video, absolutely.